When the Lord had delivered David from all his enemies, David spoke to the Lord this psalm. The opening line is a summary of David’s life, “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer.” The rest of the Psalm is an unfolding of that theme. When my life comes to an end, what will my song be to the Lord? Will it be centered upon His great protection and provision, or will it be centered upon my great selfishness and greed? Will it be upon how He has protected me, or will it be upon how I have conquered and brought others to bow at my feet? The three word pictures rock, fortress and deliverer are related in thought and reality. In the ancient world, cities were built in places that had a defensible crest. A large rock upon which a fortress could be built was desirable for protection. David saw the Lord as His protection. I have never been in physical battle, but many times I have known the protection of the Lord. A couple of times I have faced a robber or an assailant. The Lord has protected me then! He has always heard my cry.
Living in tornado alley, I have experienced many tornado warnings and watches. They have been up close and personal. I’ve seen the awesome power of the dark waters and clouds. The power of His voice rumbles through the thunders of the storms. The lightning flashes the brilliance of His glory.
David talked about the waves of life overflowing Him. Had he ever, like the disciples, been out on the Sea of Galilee when a sudden storm came up and almost drowned? Had he been to the Mediterranean Sea and experienced the irresistible pull of a rip tide? Had the Lord come walking to him on the water? Maybe not literally but metaphorically, his life had often been that way, and the Lord delivered Him everytime. As He thought about the Lord, it caused him to cry out, “For who is God, except the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God?
The enemy of our souls constantly seeks to kill, steal and destroy us. The Lord is our Rock. We can hide in Him as our fortress. The enemy seeks to drown us with the cares and the deceitfulness of the riches of this world. The Lord sets us on a rock where the waves cannot touch us. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
Who is a Rock except our God. This looking out from the northern palace of Herod the Great on top of Masada. Can you imagine what a defense this rock would have been against an army? The Dead Sea is to the east (right). No wave can touch you on this rock.
PSALM 87
My brother once lived in a house that he rented from a farmer. The house did not have a well. It had a cistern. He had to pay to have water regularly hauled out to have his cistern filled. What would have happened if we did not have trucks that could haul the water? He would definitely have to have found another place to live. Life is unlivable without access to water.
The theme of the Psalm is the glories of the city of God, Zion. Something or someone’s glory is usually found in what people often say of it. What do Rahab (Egypt), Babylon, Philistia, Tyre and Ethiopia have in common with Zion? They are all nations which at one time or another controlled or sought to control Israel. Geographically, they surround Israel, and relatively speaking, they are close. They are the ones who could give testimony of Zion’s glory. Zion is the place where God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Zion is the place where David offered sacrifice stopping the work of the death angel. Zion is the place where Solomon’s Temple was built, where God’s glory dwelt, where sacrifices were made daily and the annual feasts were held. Zion is the place where Jesus died outside the city gates.
What is the significance of the threefold repeated statement, “This one was born there?” It is His death and resurrection that made my new life possible. It is His death and resurrection that made our adoption into the family of God possible. In a spiritual sense, I was born there. Metaphorically, everyone who is born again was born there!
“My springs come from Zion!” A spring is the source of life. It is the source of a family. It is what makes daily life enjoyable and possible. When we sing, we sing of our joys and our sorrows. We sing of the source of our life. When our springs dry up it renders our life, lifeless. When the springs flow, we are abundant with life. What are the glories of the city of God, of Zion? We are. It is all about His awesome work in His death, burial, resurrection and ascension in order to cause us to be born again into His family! When our lives flow with the joy that springs from the very life of God, the nations and people who surround us stand up and take notice. God is glorified because of the life that flows out of us. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
DANIEL 8
I have had many times when I was penniless and without food, and the time for a meal was approaching, but I have never gone hungry because I could not afford to eat. I have had many times when it appeared that danger was approaching, but I have never experienced difficulty but that His presence was with me in the danger, and something good came out of the difficulty. It appears from my life that He is clearly in control of the events I encounter.
The glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in Daniel 8 is that He demonstrates that He clearly is in control of world events to the extent that he could tell Daniel exactly what was going to happen 373 years before it happened. He did it in a vision which confused Daniel, but when the keys to interpreting the vision are given and the history transpired, it becomes crystal clear, especially as we look backward in History. The Medo-Persian empire, which would replace Belshazzar’s empire, would be destroyed by Alexander the Great. When Alexander would die, his kingdom would be divided among his four generals. None of the four would rule with the power that Alexander would rule. A descendant of one of the four kings, Antiochus Epiphanes, would rise to power and perform an act of desolation upon the temple of Jerusalem and upon the people for 2,300 days. Antiochus slaughtered a pig in the temple and used the temple to worship Zeus. This abomination lasted for 2300 days, the length of time from when he initiated it until the time which the Maccabees restored the temple and cleansed it. Daniel had this vision around 538 B.C., around 68 years after the first deportation of Jerusalem (in which Daniel was exiled). The events described in this vision would begin at about 334 B.C.; the decisive battle being at Gaugamela in 331 B.C. The cleansing of the temple from Antiochus’ desolation occurred about 165 B.C. So Daniel’s vision of the future covered roughly 169 years the beginning of which was at least 200 years in the future. The vision Jesus gave Daniel nailed it. It was spot on.
If Jesus can control world events like that, can and will he control events in my life and your life? Of course He can and does. Then why is there so much pain in history of man against man? There was tremendous pain of man against man in the vision that God showed Daniel. The pain was so great that Daniel was overwhelmed and faint for some days upon completion of the vision. It is reported that in the battle of Gaugamela over 100,000 soldiers perished. Thousands perished in the liberation of Jerusalem by the Maccabees. I think Daniel saw and felt the emotional trauma of these battles. Somehow in the sovereignty of God, He controls history yet permits us to make our own decisions. The result is that He guides history, and we are indeed free moral agents. So yes, Jesus controls the events in my life and your life, yet we make genuinely free decisions. I am unable to logically reconcile those two facts. Yet, I believe they are true. That makes His glory all the brighter! I can trust Him that he will make everything come to good, if I choose to love Him and follow His purpose. So, today, I choose to trust in his Sovereignty that He will make my way to come to good. It might not be today, but I will indeed trust him today for tomorrow. Indeed, we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
GALATIANS 5
When we are in Christ, we have true liberty. That liberty is worked out in our lives by walking in His Spirit. I walked by my potted plant the other day. It had jumped out of its pot. The pot was turned upside down. Potting soil was everywhere. The roots had been damaged, so had some of the limbs and leaves. I picked it up and began the process of putting it all back together and I said, “You silly plant. What happened so that you would jump out of your pot and do all this destruction?’
The plant told me, “Master, I wanted so much to bear fruit and I wasn’t. I needed to get some new soil and to rid myself of the restrictions of the pot. I was hoping that in doing so, I would then be able to bear the fruit I wanted.
“You silly plant,” I said, “I put you in that soil and that pot. I will give you everything you need to produce the fruit you were designed to produce. Stay in the pot and you will eventually produce all that you desire to produce—in the fullness of time.”
Walking in the Spirit is like that. We must focus on the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Doing so, we stay in the soil. We stay in the pot. We eventually produce the fruit we were designed to produce. And it is all to His glory. He made it as simple as abiding in the pot, in Him. Gazing at His glory we are changed into His glory. It is something He does. It brings glory to Him. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John
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